EPA won’t even finalize its draft report as Wyoming takes control.

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Last October, Ars published an update to a US EPA investigation linking natural gas production to groundwater contamination in Wyoming. On Thursday, the EPA announced that it will step back from the investigation, ceding leadership to the State of Wyoming.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission will further investigate groundwater conditions around Pavillion with support from the EPA, according to the press release. The scope of the investigation will be more limited, however. It'll now focus on a select number of private wells rather than larger questions about the possibility of gas production and hydraulic fracking impacts in shallow and deep groundwater. The State plans to additionally sample fourteen water supply wells, analyze existing data on the cement seals in gas production wells within a quarter mile of those water wells, and search for records of previous wastewater pits used to hold fracking fluid in that area. The results are scheduled to be finalized and released in September 2014.

Some of that work will be paid for with funds from a $1.5 million grant that Encana, the gas exploration company operating in Pavillion, is giving to the Wyoming Natural Resource Foundation.

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead’s statement in the EPA press release reads, “It is in everyone’s best interest—particularly the citizens who live outside of Pavillion—that Wyoming and the EPA reach an unbiased, scientifically supportable conclusion. I commend the EPA and Encana for working with me to chart a positive course for this investigation. I commit that Wyoming will work in a thoughtful and productive manner as further investigation is initiated.”

The move allows Wyoming, whose collaboration with the EPA in Pavillion hasn’t been entirely harmonious, the freedom to evaluate the water supply well issues as it sees fit.

The EPA also appears to be abandoning its draft reports on the investigation according to its press release. “While EPA stands behind its work and data, the agency recognizes the State of Wyoming’s commitment for further investigation and efforts to provide clean water and does not plan to finalize or seek peer review of its draft Pavillion groundwater report released in December, 2011. Nor does the agency plan to rely upon the conclusions in the draft report.”

Wyoming will, however, utilize the data collected by the EPA up to this point for its final report.

How significant is Encana's contribution to the cost of this investigation? Because if a fracking company is essentially paying for the investigation into how harmful fracking is... well, what do I win if I can guess their findings ahead of time?

There are few boundaries for the Eco-nuts, and telling lies is the boundary, like any liberal, they have long ago passed so many times that they no longer even think about it as a lie.

Good to know that idiotic stereotyping and groundless ad hominem attacks are alive and well on Ars.

Only here; if he tried to play that crap in the Open Forum he wouldn't last long.

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How significant is Encana's contribution to the cost of this investigation? Because if a fracking company is essentially paying for the investigation into how harmful fracking is... well, what do I win if I can guess their findings ahead of time?

Kinda unsure how that contribution is going to play at all, since they're giving it to a 501(c)(3) group unaffiliated with the government agencies doing the investigation.

Let's see... fracking is an industry that creates jobs in a depressed economy. Investigations into companies raises their costs and allows them to raise the specter of lost jobs. Politicians know that touting job-creation is a vote-getter.

Given all that, there's only one way that this state-led investigation will end - with victory for the fracking companies and some minor added regulations to make it look like the state is interested in protecting public health over short-term corporate profits and economic gains.

Nice pay-off and bailing on the actual results; reclassifying a study before it's finished and whitewashing it to only include a few specific instances, meaning regardless of the results this will have zero affect on future projects and at best will be a few pay offs to a couple of people affected today.

Let's see... fracking is an industry that creates jobs in a depressed economy. Investigations into companies raises their costs and allows them to raise the specter of lost jobs. Politicians know that touting job-creation is a vote-getter.

Given all that, there's only one way that this state-led investigation will end - with victory for the fracking companies and some minor added regulations to make it look like the state is interested in protecting public health over short-term corporate profits and economic gains.

Jobs = good. Being alive and with the usual complement of regular limbs = better;

That video has been debunked so many times. At least do some research before putting up environmentalists propaganda.The EPA being bought off doesn't make a lot of sense either. Wyoming is the reddest of the red states and no friend to the Obama administration. I doubt that this administration would go out of it's way to help Wyoming or the fracking industry.

That video has been debunked so many times. At least do some research before putting up environmentalists propaganda.The EPA being bought off doesn't make a lot of sense either. Wyoming is the reddest of the red states and no friend to the Obama administration. I doubt that this administration would go out of it's way to help Wyoming or the fracking industry.

Just curious, what exactly was "debunked" about the video? Are you saying the lady wasn't setting the methane coming out of her faucet on fire?

As someone who works in the industry (not anything to do with unconventionals and fracking, though) I am a little surprised that Encana would provide this funding, giving people who wanted to discredit the report some powerful ammunition. Putting on my tinfoil hat, however, it's possible that they were very nervous about the direction the original EPA report was heading, and made a judgement that on balance they would rather help engineer a switch to the state-level investigation even if the results are perceived to be tainted. This would, incidentally, be the cleverest way to influence the process; in this era of whistleblowers and the like, direct intervention would be a brave move.

Given how strongly Encana are weighted towards shale gas now, and how lean the mix of "liquids rich" plays is in their portfolio (which is how many of the onshore US players are currently surviving low HH prices), I'd expect their strong priority to be avoiding any kind of increased govt. intervention into fracking. For those who are familiar with these things, their '13 forecast is about 3bcf/d gas and 50kBbl/d liquids, most of which is onshore.

Nah, couldn't possibly be any conflict of interest there. I mean really, there isn't a state government in the US that would deprive it's residents the ability to drink clean water just because they may stand to lose billions of dollars in oil and gas field revenues. Especially not Wyoming....

Johnson did not research the issue at all. WSJ has the best reporting. Make sure to read the comments, the EPA study was grossly incompetent and they would have been sued.

I think for most of us, myself included, a red flag was raised once Urkle started ranting about "Eco-nuts" this and "liberals" that. Even though he actually seemed to have some valid points initially, they became much harder to swallow once he started making idiotic statements and obvious logical fallacies, something the Ars Readers picked up on rather quickly.

On the surface this says to me that there is now a ~0% chance of the final report finding that fracking leads to anything other than puppies and sunshine.

Not completely since they're beginning where the initial EPA report left off thus they have to address those issues which began the dispute before influential forces intervened. As a result, they'll likely address a few of the blatant problems like concerned environmentalists while they whitewash the rest. This way, they can use this "cleanup" media coverage to dispel future attacks that they don't respond or care about reports of contamination. Ironically, it will also likely help them frack in more environmentally sensitive areas as they can present it with new drilling permits as a strong volunteer effort on their part to actively address problems and issues of contamination as if it were a rare incidence.

The EPA being bought off doesn't make a lot of sense either. Wyoming is the reddest of the red states and no friend to the Obama administration. I doubt that this administration would go out of it's way to help Wyoming or the fracking industry.

Obama is the definition of D.I.N.O (Democrat In Name Only) on the majority of issues. The only Repubs that really dislike him are the ones on the far extremist right of issues and those people don't even like a lot of the candidates whom call themselves Republicans. Thus, while he may not be their "promoter", he certainly isn't likely going to be their "adversary" either.

Let's see... fracking is an industry that creates jobs in a depressed economy. Investigations into companies raises their costs and allows them to raise the specter of lost jobs. Politicians know that touting job-creation is a vote-getter.

Given all that, there's only one way that this state-led investigation will end - with victory for the fracking companies and some minor added regulations to make it look like the state is interested in protecting public health over short-term corporate profits and economic gains.

"I commend the EPA and Encana for working with me to chart a positive course for this investigation"... Sounded like Encana saved itself a lot of money on advertisement there...

I really want to think it will be an unbiased, truthful investigation, but reducing the sample set and under the impression that Wyoming govt wants to show how good Encana is and how generously they are funding this investigation, I doubt it.

First, the contamination was found in two "monitoring wells" drilled by EPA outside of town, not in water wells that actually supply residents their water. EPA use of "dense soda ash" to drill its monitoring wells into a hydrocarbon-bearing layer probably skewed the results.

According to the industry research group Energy in Depth, "dense soda ash has a recorded pH (11.5), very similar to the level found in the deep wells, creating the possibility that the high pH recorded by EPA could have been caused by the very chemicals it used to drill its own wells."

What the EPA report doesn't say is that the U.S. Geological Survey has detected organic chemicals in the well water in Pavillion for at least five decades, long before fracking was done. The deepwater wells that EPA drilled are situated near a natural gas reservoir.

Encana Corp., which owns more than 100 wells near Pavillion, says it didn't "put the natural gas at the bottom of the EPA's deep monitoring wells. Nature did."

Johnson did not research the issue at all. WSJ has the best reporting. Make sure to read the comments, the EPA study was grossly incompetent and they would have been sued.

The Wall Street Journal typically does great reporting, but lets face facts: it has a discernible bias, and posts in a comment section hardly constitute evidence. Unfortunately, it's hard to comment further on your statement, since you have to have a subscription to get that particular article and I don't have one.

If you're going to call the EPA incompetent, you should flesh out your own ideas, and use citation to support them rather than rely on the WSJ to do the work for you.

Regardless of the problems associated with the data obtained by the EPA, the way they have handed this over to Wyoming is just going to create controversy. It's not a matter of "manipulating public opinion", but being as transparent as possible and presenting the data as collected with interpretation so that the public could understand the reasons behind their decision.

I live in Montana. Wyoming is well known for being extremely pro-resource extraction. It's a huge part of the Wyoming economy and environmental concerns are always a distant third after money and "jobs". "Jobs" in this case meaning money for corporations. Most jobs that do get created aren't long-term anyway.

I live in Montana. Wyoming is well known for being extremely pro-resource extraction. It's a huge part of the Wyoming economy and environmental concerns are always a distant third after money and "jobs". "Jobs" in this case meaning money for corporations. Most jobs that do get created aren't long-term anyway.

...and in WV, it's highway construction. The asphalt's razor thin so they wear out in a couple years, kicking off another multi-year jobs program to resurface the highway.

The big oil companies had to do this, as if the EPA really found out what they were pumping into the ground, it could affect their operations at a national level. Best to keep it at a state level where it can be more easily managed. You may think I'm being too critical but here's a question for you. Heard anything about Exxon's oil spill in Arkansas since April? They got the FAA to declare a no-fly zone over an American town to black out the news! Now make me believe they can't influence a state's department of resources, especially if that state is hard up for tax dollars. People may think that they are only poisoning the locals, but like that rancher in North Dakota said, he can buy bottle water but has no choice but to let his cattle drink it. So the next time you order a steak and detect the subtle aroma of toluene and benzene, you'll probably be right! Remember our new national motto folks: Profits At All Costs!